


Cataclysm

by kaijuwantsacookie



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Secret Organizations, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29033919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuwantsacookie/pseuds/kaijuwantsacookie
Summary: Sean had only wanted to reach his brother. But when he happens across Cassidy at just the right time to save her from a mysterious stranger with powers like Daniel's, it seems the universe has other plans for him as well.Meanwhile, Max has another nightmare.When supernatural forces threaten their world, they must come together to protect the peaceful lives they've wanted for so long...and the promise of a future they won't let go of so easily.AU where it is Cassidy whom Sean discovers while trying to escape Sacred Hope, the government knows about people with powers, among other things.
Relationships: Cassidy/Sean Diaz, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Cataclysm

Throughout Sacred Hope Hospital's fifty years in operation, they had never had a patient quite like Sean Diaz.

Now it wasn't that Sacred Hope never had welcomed delinquent and criminal patients; they definitely had their fair share over many a year.. It had even housed a famed crime boss who'd ended up jumping out a window to avoid jurisdiction that they'd been certain wouldn't end well for them. 

But Sean Diaz was a different sort of celebrity. At the age of sixteen, along with his little brother, Daniel, he had gone on the run ever since an encounter with a police officer had claimed the lives of their father and said police officer. It had been all over the news: a tragedy only worsened by the fact that the boys had run away as well. Nobody at the hospital put any blame on them for the crime: they all knew it was likely a case of police brutality. 

So when they'd received word that the boy had gotten hurt, was in a coma, lost an eye and his brother all on the same night, many at the hospital sympathized and pitied him. Whatever crime Sean Diaz may or may not have committed, the whole situation was considered a tragedy. Of course, that didn't mean they were wary of the circumstances he had been found at. He'd also been working at an illegal pot farm, which wasn't exactly a good look for him.

And there was the matter of the other people who had been admitted. A group of drifters of various ages, the oldest being in their thirties, all who had been working at the pot farm as well. Like Sean, they had arrived in a less than splendid fashion. The owner of the farm himself had been treated at a separate facility, and was currently under police custody.

There were many questions that the hospital employees had to keep in the back of their minds. It didn't matter if one of the nurses had overheard the weed farm owner raving to an investigator about one of the Diaz brothers having magical powers. The details of whatever happened was up to the authorities to mull over. At the moment, all they needed to do was to do what they did best: offer up the best care to these young people and ensure they felt comfortable and safe for as long as their recovery lasted.

Needless to say, none of them were prepared for what followed.

* * *

Although there were no physical bonds of any kind placed on him, Sean knew that he was still shackled by his circumstances.

As he lay on his bed awake in the middle of the night, he thought about the events that had brought him to this moment: how badly he'd failed his friends and his brother. When he'd joined Finn and Cassidy's group, his main goal was to keep them all safe, and that...had gone about as well as the day his father had been shot.

He skimmed through Cassidy's letter for the millionth time since he'd gotten it. Given he was apparently confined to her room, still in the process of healing, she had no clue if she would ever get to see him again. Sean himself was under guard and unable to leave his room under police order. Not that he'd been able to leave, anyway. His whole body had felt so stiff when he'd woken up even getting up to use the restroom was an excruciating act.

Cassidy's injuries had been about as serious as his: she too had apparently woken up from a coma: albeit a much shorter on than Sean's. She'd greeted the world to find her arm shattered, her leg in a cast, stitches done on the back of her scalp, and "blast lung injury" (which was healing, thank goodness).

Cassidy had taken the most damage out of anyone who'd been there that night. In the letter, she'd explained that her right arm had fractured from whatever force had shattered the cabin they had their standoff with Merill and Big Joe. She'd torn the skin of her scalp and broken her nose from how badly she'd been tossed across the room.

She'd explained that and the current status of their group as well. Sean always felt his heart sink when he read that the group had apparently been discussing splitting up. As if he couldn't feel any more guilty for bringing a wrecking ball straight into their lives.

Still, he relished the honeyed words she wrote in the letter as well. " _I hope we can swim naked again under a new moonlight._.." He reread the entire thing for the millionth time, constantly drawn to the bittersweet, melancholic words she'd used for a closer: _'I'll always be singing your song.'_

 _I miss her so much,_ Sean thought. He wished he could hold her, kiss her goodnight, breathe the earthy scent of her skin, listen to the sweet sound of her voice as she sang by the light of a campfire...

But that wouldn't matter much anymore. His friends had all made it out alive; now he needed to find Daniel. Now that he'd had the information he needed to find him, there wasn't a lick of time he could afford to waste. He had to get them across to Mexico, to the promised land he'd sworn he would give to the both of them. His brother deserved as much...all he could do was hope that he would be able to see it through with him. No matter how much his heart ached to return to the precious times he'd had with his drifter friends, he knew that could never be.

 _Maybe...maybe once we're safe, I'll be able to get in touch with them_ , Sean considered. A newfound sense of determination filled within him. He decided to make that his goal and motivator: their story wouldn't end on such an abrupt, tragic note.

With practiced ease, he got up and stretched his arms and legs: given how often he was kept bedridden, his muscles often seized up at the most inopportune moments: something he couldn't afford to have happen while he made his escape. He jogged in place for a while just to loosen them a little further.

He grabbed his tube of anti eye cream and shoved it in the pocket of his hospital gown. In one hand, he quietly made his way to the door to the hallway. It was locked as usual, and the guard was fast asleep right next to it. Otherwise the entire hall appeared to be empty. Perhaps he could wake him up and try to send him on an errand in order to distract him?

No, Sean decided that was far too risky. Even if he found something that he could use to knock out the guard, that would require the timing and his aim to be pitch perfect, and his depth perception wasn't quite up to par just yet. He had to find another way into the staff room. There were his clothes and backpack (Joey had told him they were there when asked)

Thankfully, he already had a plan B in mind. Outside, only about two yards away from his hospital room window, there was construction being done outside and in the rooms next to his. There was a strong chance he could sneak into the hall through any of the rooms there. All he needed was something he could use to break the guard on his window...

With a quick scan of his surroundings, a solution came in the form of, all things, a metal shower rail that wasn't properly bolted in. Pulling it took a bit of effort, but thankfully it didn't make enough noise for the guard to be alarmed.

Not willing to take any more chances, Sean immediately got to work prying it open, which was easy given the metal rail was just as efficient as any crowbar. Once he'd gotten it open, Sean stuck his head outside, scanning his surroundings. Not a soul to be seen or heard in the parking lot this late. It was an awfully beautiful night: perfect for a stroll under the stars. It was a pity Sean couldn't afford to simply walk to Arkansas: not when the police would soon be hot on his trail if the snoozing guard woke up and decided to check up on him.

As he slowly stepped onto the railing on the hospital exterior, Sean tried not to focus his attention on how high up he was from the ground. Really hope my last view of this world isn't going to be of the pavement. Not that it was much of a concern: it wasn't like he was afraid of heights or anything...

A cold, sudden breeze came, causing him to shudder. He felt his legs begin to shake nervously.

 _Oh no_! Sean willed himself to focus on something, anything other than the ground below him or his wobbling legs. But what? What was the most relaxing thing he could put his mind on at a moment like this? But what was it? What could it be, when the journey he'd been on had been so rife with fear?

Suddenly, it hit him like lightning.

_It's me, it's me, you've come to take..._

The soft lyrics came to him again, along with the familiar sound of Cassidy's voice. Of course. The moment he'd first listened to her sing, during that snowy day months ago, he'd felt all his immediate fears and worries lift like a weight off his shoulder. He'd asked her to sing that song only once more after that day, as a request during one of their evening fireside chats. He'd often fall asleep reciting the lyrics to himself on certain nights when it was difficult to drift into dreamland. The memory of her cane hack to him as vividly as reality, and it gave him just the confidence and focus he needed to stop stalling.

He carefully skimmed his way across the ledge, humming Cassidy's song quietly to himself. They were the lifeline he was holding onto, and would likely be holding onto for a long time.

Getting his clothes, bag and the car key was a breeze after that. It was when he'd scaled down two floors of scaffolding when he saw something that made his heart stop.

A girl was dozing away on the hospital bed in the room he was peering into. There, with her right leg, an arm bandaged and in a cast, her purple hair longer than he'd ever seen it, was Cassidy. She seemed to have just finished a late night snack: there was an empty ramen cup was on the table next to her bed, along with a plastic fork.

Sean was about to cry out in shock, but stopped himself. Could he really afford to wake her and possibly alarm someone else on the floor she was on? But did he really want to leave her disappointed, if perhaps, she'd been hoping to be able to see him again?

As he pondered this, a cold breeze began to pick up. The air around him began to accelerate, rustling the trees, causing the air around him to howl. Strong winds like this weren't uncommon during the nighttime, but Sean had never experienced anything with this intensity. The streetlights began to flicker. Sean got onto his knees and tucked his arms in an attempt to protect himself from the icy winds.

The wind suddenly picked up and there was a different kind of howling happening. In the middle of the parking lot, a dark hole opened up. From that hole came out something long followed by something else with a bend to it. With his messy depth perception Sean had a difficult time making it out, but it didn't take him long to realize that they were a human arm and leg.

Sean watched in awe and shock as an entire human stepped out of that hole. The stranger was clad in a black trench coat, his hair dyed a frosty white. He was tall and ridiculously lean. From a distance, Sean still couldn't make out the look of his face, but he didn't need to know to be able to tell that the man was quite happy.

"Diaz and Jones. Sean and Cassidy," he sang in a singsong tone. By his voice, Sean guessed he had to be around his late twenties or early thirties. "I hope your dreams haven't been so sweet." he heard him say to himself.

 _How did he know we were here?_ Sean wondered. _What does he want with us?_ Thinking about it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

The stranger suddenly waved his hand at a car. Immediately the vehicle at least ten yards to smash right into an ambulance parked nearby. The sound made Sean jump in shock. Two people rushed out from the hospital entrance, probably to check on what was happening. The stranger merely walked past them as they rushed to take a look at the wreckage.

He shifted his attention back to Cassidy's room. She was still asleep. The crash hadn't woken her up. It seemed he would have to be louder than that to get her attention.

He knocked sharply against the glass window of her room. " _Hey Cass_. Cass!"

Cassidy stirred. She rubbed her eyes and then looked at the window, eyes slowly widening. She reached over and turned on her bed lamp, then looked back at him, her eyes meeting his. "Sean!"

"Cassidy..." Sean could just about leap with joy. After almost two months of only having a letter and pictures for company, seeing her in the flesh was something he most sorely missed. He quickly broke the guard on the window, no longer caring if he made a lot of noise. Not when lives were possibly in danger. "I-I can't believe you're here, I th-"

"-ought you'd already been moved!" They both exclaimed simultaneously. Without hesitation, Sean rushed to Cassidy's side, where they locked themselves into a much needed embrace.

Before tonight, Sean could only dream of being this close to her again. He also hadn't known just how much he'd missed being this close to someone; even doing something as simple as a hug. He promised himself to give Sean just as much love when he found him.

She smelled different than he remembered. Her true scent, he realized, now that she'd finally had the luxury of being able to take regular showers. She smelled a little of the same hospital soap and shampoo that was issued to him, but there was also a sort of muskiness to her that he found both familiar and alluring.

But Sean couldn't stall for even a moment like this. "It's good to see you too," he said, breaking the hug. "But we need to hide. Someone's trying to break into the hospital."

"What?" Cassidy gasped. Her eyes widened.

"And they've got powers just like Daniel's," Sean added. "I don't know what they could possibly want here, but hopefully it's got nothing to do with you or me. Can't rely on hope though."

Cassidy nodded. "Lock the door. You can hide underneath my bed if you need to."

"But what about you?" Sean asked. No way was he going to leave her to fend for herself.

"Excuse me sir?" came an echoed call from outside. The stranger. "I'm looking for Cassidy Jones, just need to speak with her about something."

"Sir?" answered the voice of another man. "I need you to step back." _A guard_ , Sean guessed. And an unlucky one at that.

"I mean no harm to her," the stranger said. "I just need five minutes, maybe less if she's actually polite, despite the circumstances..."

"I said step back!" The guard yelled. "Or I will shoo—"

The guard suddenly yelped, followed by a violent, explosive crash. Silence followed, then the thumping of boots which grew louder and louder.

"Hide!" Cassidy whispered to Sean.

Another _ban_! From outside, to their right. Then another, which sounded closer. And another. Sean realized that the intruder was forcing the doors of the rooms in their floor open, one by one.

Reluctantly, he took cover underneath Cassidy's bed. He held onto the metal grip he'd taken from his shower as tightly as he could, ready to leap to action if necessary. Only a few seconds later, Cassidy's door was finally forced open.

"Are you Cassidy Jones?" He heard the stranger ask.

Silence. Then, after a moment: "I am," Cassidy said.

"Gosh," the man chuckled. "You look just like I remember. And just like the photo I was shown of you. You wanna see?"

Sean heard the shuffling of clothing, followed by the crinkling of paper. Moments later, Cassidy gasped. "...Is that?"

"Taken in a morgue, yes," the stranger said. "And if the first word that pops into your head is Photoshop , my answer is that you should ask yourself: why?"

Sean could ask himself the same question. "I don't understand. Have we met before?"

"Not in this world, no." The man replied. "But in another time...this world has only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the secrets it holds."

"You didn't break in here just to talk about science with me, did you?" Cassidy said in a way that Sean recognized that she was trying l0not to seem scared.

"Of course." The stranger remarked. Sean could just imagine him smiling in pleasure as he said it. He spoke to Cassidy as if he were addressing a misbehaving child he couldn't wait to teach a lesson. "Do you mind telling me which floor Sean Diaz is in? The clerk downstairs wasn't specific enough for my liking, and as you probably heard, the gentleman outside wasn't exactly polite. I was hoping you'd be the first to break that pattern."

"Over my dead body," Cassidy spat.

"You're awfully loyal to someone you've only known for a few months."

Sean squeezed his eyes shut. This was it. He couldn't possibly expect her to put her own life at risk.

"A lot can happen in those months," Cassidy said firmly.

Sean exhaled in relief. _Cassidy..._ But that meant she was in more danger now. He couldn't let her take any hits for him any longer. Especially not in her condition.

"Very true," said the stranger. "The same thing happened to me, you know. Meeting someone special, someone who lights a spark within you. But let's quit it with the small talk?"

"I-I won't..." Cassidy suddenly stopped talking. Instead, shee started to make strange gulping and gasping noises. She was choking! 

"My orders weren't to kill you," the stranger said. Sean watched his legs walk closer to the bed. "But I most definitely can do all sorts of things to you. Especially given how helpless you are..."

The man was close enough for Sean to make out the amount of dried mud on his thick, leather military boots. As much as he hated to admit it, Cassidy's strangled gasps were proving to be a good distraction from the sound of him slowly getting up at the side of the bed. Carefully, making as much effort as he could to minimize sound, he got up and swung the iron grip as hard as he could into the side of the stranger's knee.

It did its trick. The stranger buckled, and Cassidy suddenly inhaled loudly and hard. Her face had already started turning purple when Sean had interrupted the attack. Sean swung again at the side of the stranger's head. But unfortunately they learned quickly, because the man dodged it with ease and tried to take a swing at Sean's head, narrowly missing it by mere centimetres.

The stranger suddenly cried out again, grasping his knee: Sean had done more damage than he'd anticipated. Without hesitating, Sean tackled the stranger to the ground, wrapping his hands around his head and digging both his thumbs into the man's eye sockets.

The man let out a guttural howl, blinded, but an unseen force suddenly sent Sean flying backward and into the wall. The back of his head smacked it, and as Sean plopped onto his buttocks, he saw stars. Too dazed to move, he watched the stranger slowly get up. Clearly, he still had some power in him yet...

Only for a resounding SMACK! to interrupt whatever attack he'd been about to land as Cassidy whacked him in the back of his head with the broken off rail. She landed another blow at the stranger's forearm, causing him to howl. As he fell, Sean took the opportunity to slip out and push the man right into the open window.

With Cassidy’s help, who was clearly struggling to balance on her own two feet, Sean pushed at the dazed man's legs until most of his body was already onto the scaffolding outside. With a roar of fury, they continued to push until the stranger's feet had touched the windowsill. And then he was off it. Sean barely managed to glimpse at the man's frantic attempts to grab at the metal poles of the scaffolding. But it was too late for him. 

There was a heavy thud as the stranger hit the sidewalk. Yelling and screams followed, probably from the people who'd come to investigate the cars crashed outside. Neither of them were definitely interested in checking if that was the case.

To Sean, it might as well have been room noise. He was too busy catching his breath from the effort of what he'd just performed. And there was the other person in the room with him: someone who he would risk it all over again for.

Sean looked to his right at Cassidy, who had collapsed on the floor next to him. "Are...are you alright?" he said in between breaths.

Cassidy was still in the middle of gasps, face flushed red from exertion. She grabbed at her bandaged angle, whimpering, but managed to nod. "I've been worse," she replied, voice hoarse. "And I'm the last person you should be worried about. He was going to kill you, Sean. You need to be careful when you lea—"

Sean couldn't stop himself. He quickly put his hands on her cheeks, then proceeded to capture her lips in his. They were cold and a little chapped, but the relief and passion was no less unbridled. Sirens rang in the distance, getting louder as time passed. 

"You didn't give me up." Sean said after he broke the kiss.

"I..." A warm tear suddenly ran down Cassidy's cheek, landing on Sean's left thumb. "I could never do that to someone I cared so much about."

Sean took the time to really take in her appearance, now he was able to. Cassidy clearly hadn't dyed her hair in a while, for her naturally auburn roots had come through, blending with the hair that was already dyed. "I'm not leaving you."

He embraced her, holding her tightly like a lifeline. He heard people shouting from the hall, nurses and workers who were probably confused, shocked, and demanding to know what on earth was going on. And when they eventually found out just which window the stranger had fallen from, they were going to ask just what he was doing fully clothed in Cassidy's room and why a man had suddenly fallen several stories from their room.

Sean knew he'd missed his chance to escape, with people outside and in the hospital up and about. But that didn't matter, not when someone he cared about, someone he'd missed for so long, needed someone to stay with her when they started asking questions.

Sorry buddy. Daniel would have to wait a little longer. Especially when it was likely he would no longer have to keep certain truths close to his chest.

* * *

It was proving to be another exhausting night.

Having just spent forty-eight hours on one of the most excruciating flights of her life, Elaine Freeman couldn't wait to be able to finally get onto her flight and finally get some shut eye in a chair that wasn't as comfortable as a wooden plank. Being a chief at a government agency, unfortunately, did not mean that she was afforded the luxury of a first class seat. Either in a plane, or in any of the top secret invisible UFOs that she'd been disappointed to find out did not truly exist (too expensive and risky to fly, she'd been told, especially when it was the obvious thing to look out for nowadays.

Elaine sighed, twisting her spine and cracking it in order to stretch her stiff, weary joints. Being in her late thirties, she was finally beginning to experience the reality of her body failing her when it was the least convenient. She hadn't had the issue when she'd been away in Hong Kong in a meeting with the Bureau there. Not that anything of note had actually been of interest to her. It was the same old, crackshot theories and weakly argued "warnings" put together by bored employees looking for a raise that were almost unanimously dismissed by those in charge (including herself).

Working in a top secret government bureau hadn't been something Elaine had ever planned on doing. She'd been interested in following the footsteps of her father, who'd been her home county's beloved Sheriff. But she did have an interest in the paranormal growing up, having been a die hard fan of all sorts of horror and supernatural theme things like films and The X-files. She identified with the strange and the surprising, but after fifteen years of living and breathing it for a career, she tragically started to find it all rather mundane. It didn't help that the last incident that had truly gotten her excited had been three years ago.

Elaine's phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out, read the name on the screen, and rolled her eyes. Still, whenever duty called, she was obligated to answer. "Hello?"

"Miss Freeman?"

She sighed. "At your service, Salvin."

"You sound exhausted Ma'am," Salvin replied.

Elaine could imagine her colleague smiling behind the line, thousands of miles away, thinking she wouldn't notice his glee at catching her in an annoyed mood. Why he took pleasure in it, Elaine wasn't sure, but she had a feeling that having a mischievous attitude made him feel youthful than her, despite the fact that he was five years her elder. At forty-two, Salvin was not someone who resisted "feeling old" as much as he could, and while Elaine could empathize, she was never going to act anywhere like he did.

She shook her head. "I wonder if there's a marathon for people who have to stay awake for ridiculous hours at a time. I think I'd do well in one of those."

"Well what I'm about to tell you just might give you a little extra spark to keep on going. There's been a blip on the temporal readers. A big one."

Elaine felt as if she'd been pinched."How big?"

"It's not Arcadia Bay big, thankfully,” Salvin explained. “But the size of it isn't what’s interesting. It's what happened in the area after it showed up. The hospital; and it was a normal, not suspicious hospital it showed up at...it was attacked immediately afterward."That certainly gave her a spark she needed. "What exactly happened?" she asked, now listening with full attention.

"A car parked on one side of the parking lot was smashed right into an ambulance on the other side of it. Guards and people thrown across rooms, concussions and broken necks galore. One death," Salvin explained. "You know that phrase, bull in a china shop, and how most people overuse it for the teeniest little accidents? Well, judging from the pictures I've been sent, that's not true for what the mess made there. Across two floors, if I might add. And get this...it was all done by one man."

 _Interesting._ "And in which city and state is the hospital where this metaphorical bull let loose?"

"Redding, California. Sacred Hope is its name. Not sure if you're up to take a look? I know you're still on the way back from Hong Kong."

Elaine looked up the name of the town on her smartphone, then put it into her Maps app. "It's either an 8 hour drive or a 2 hour flight away. I'll check to see if there's a flight available at this hour. If not, I'll rent a car and get there myself. Tell the local authorities that I'm one my way."

"Good. There's two patients at the hospital who you’ll definitely be interested in talking to."

"Why's that?" Elaine asked. "They both witnesses?"

Salvin's chuckle crackled through their line. "They sure seem to be. Somehow they managed to overpower the intruder and push them out a four story window. What they've been saying sounds like something you'd expect a five year old to make up. So one of them claims that they were being choked by someone who had the ability to toss around things with a flick of their hand, like they were using the Force. But what's even stranger is what we found on him..."


End file.
